BLUE RIDGE EASES COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

CFDESIGN INTEGRATES ANALYSIS WITH CAD.

For Ed Williams, simulation software is so fundamental to design that his conviction inspired a company, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solution, and the software's name-- CFdesign.

Williams says he co-founded Blue Ridge Numerics Inc., Charlottesville, Va., to demonstrate why CFD analysis software should be used by product designers instead of off-line specialists.

"The initial challenge for CFdesign was ease of use," says Williams, president. "We wanted to offer an alternative to conventional CFD software and counter its reputation for being difficult to master, time-consuming, and prohibitively expensive. Just hearing the words `computational fluid dynamics' is usually enough to send shudders down the spines of most product-development engineers. The mention of CFD still tends to conjure up images of stern-looking men in white lab coats conducting experiments in NASA test cells."